AS soon as questions surfaced this year about the University of California’s generous extra payments and perks for administrators, one wondered whether California State University had similar problems.

Last week, we found out that it does, but they don’t seem as extensive — or expensive — as those at UC.

What the 23-campus CSU system with 405,000 students does is extend lucrative golden parachutes or separation packages to some administrators when they leave their posts. Select executives even get an extra year’s salary — called “transition pay” — when they take other jobs.

CSU has handed out $4 million through such departure packages over the past 10 years. Five former campus presidents, for instance, remained on the payroll for a year or more with “special assignments” that required no end product or reports of what they did.

A couple of the most questionable deals involved:

-Peter Smith, past president of Cal State Monterey Bay, getting an extra year’s salary of $157,932 after taking a position with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, where he also received a six-figure paycheck.

-David Spence, a former vice chancellor, received $173,952 from CSU during the year after he took a job with a nonprofit in Atlanta.

These were different than the agreement with Norma Rees, immediate past president of Cal State, East Bay in Hayward. She will get $235,332 to help develop the system’s educational doctoral degree program during the first year and $105,900 the second. But at least Rees is working for the university system during that time.

Chancellor Charles Reed says he followed board policy when granting such arrangements. But the program under which they were done was approved long before any current trustees joined the CSU board, and none of the parachutes seem to have been reviewed or approved by the board. Some trustees didn’t even know they existed.

Other state university systems, such as those in Texas and New York, say they don’t offer golden parachutes. And there are questions about whether such packages being forged at the executive level skirts open-meeting laws.

What irritates faculty members and students is that these lucrative packages were given out while student fees skyrocketed. Many feel it’s $4 million that could have been better spent.

Frankly, this policy needs to be revisited. Even if continued or altered, such policies must be transparent, subject to board approval and public scrutiny, not hidden.

Corey Jackson, a former CSU student trustee, says the board should review such payments on a case-by-case basis. Just as the board votes on pay and benefits packages for new CSU presidents, it should consider and approve any large, extraordinary separation or retirement packages for executives when they leave the university.

These, after all, are public universities using California taxpayers’ money. It requires that special pay arrangements be open, clear and transparent to the public.

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